The Evil Cartridge
by TheAPPstore
Summary: A poor soul buys an used copy of the game Paper Mario and gets treated with perhaps the strangest unmodified files you can ever come across.
1. Chapter 1

The Evil Cartridge-A Paper Mario Story

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I had recently purchased a used copy of the Nintendo 64 RPG, Paper Mario. I know, people have told me. I should not trust used copies of games, as they might contain some nasty things. But who cares? Those were stories anyways. Nothing bad is going to happen to me or my sanity. Probably.

So, I inserted the cartridge into my aging N64 console. That thing has been sitting there collecting dust for ages. Any yet it still works. Some pieces of technology somehow is still functional to this day, despite being created decades ago.

I booted up Paper Mario and, upon loading the file select screen, noticed four files. Each of them seems to contain a single word. They seem to contain a sentence. "Don't choose these files." Curious, I selected and loaded the file labeled as "Don't".

Upon loading the file, I was treated to a picture of Bowser's Castle with Peach's Castle on top. Its spiked balls swing without a sign of stopping as the castle endlessly floats in...somewhere. I cannot do any inputs. Any buttons that I pressed does nothing. I was stuck there staring at Bowser's castle endlessly. But my curiosity would not end there, as I reset the console and selected a different file.

Loading the second files greets me in an icy castle with a large mirror in the background. At first glance, the file seems safe. That is, until I tried to go back, and was treated with a icy barrier. There seems to be an empty altar behind the ice wall. I've spent hours trying to get past this obstacle, but then I gave up and reset the console again.

The third file was the most cruel of the bunch. As soon as the game loads, Mario is dropped right on top of a spiked enemy. He first strike it, but the spiked enemy makes it so he loses his last sliver of health. And then Mario died. Over, and over, and over again. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't save poor Mario from this torture. So I reset the console yet again.

The fourth file seems fine. Mario appears in a snowy town with penguins. How cute. Mario is also joined by a grumpy old Goomba. That's quite strange. After a bit of exploration, I came to a broken lake with a key at the bottom. Curious, I opened up the partner menu. And then the game crashed. After reloading the game, I soon discovered that I was trapped in this city with no way of escaping. No matter which exit I take, the penguins are blocking my path. I couldn't find a way around this, so I save and quit the game.

After being soft-locked several times, I came to the conclusion that there is no escaping this madness unless I deleted a file. So I did just that. To every file. Everything is wiped clean. With at least one file open, I proceed to play Paper Mario normally.

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From the Author:

Does anyone here recognized the softlocks featured in this story? No?

Well here's a tip: Go to YouTube and look up the name "Stryder7x" and look at his videos. I bet you can find one video that perfectly describes the events that happened in the story.

Hope you enjoy this one-shot story!

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Paper Mario was developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo


	2. Chapter 2

Creating the Evil Cartridge

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After owning the game for several month, I have done it. I've completed the main story, I've completed every side quest, and done everything that constitutes 100 percent completion.

I was about to return the game back to the store I got it from, when I realized something. The first time I've held on to this cartridge, I was treated to the strangest files I can encounter. I want to replicate that, so that the next curious fool who brought the game gets treated to the exact same experience that I had when I first played the game.

So I proceed to go online and find tutorials on how to recreate the glitches that I encountered. Upon doing so, I discovered that Paper Mario is the most broken game in the series. There are loads of bugs, the game can crash for seemingly the most odd reasons, and one of my partners has a move that can potentially break the game. I didn't experience any of these problems at all during my play through.

But scratch that. I don't care about doing glitches. I'm more interested in finding out how to do the soft locks that have perplexed me the day I brought it. After a bit of digging around, I discovered a video that teaches me how to perform the soft locks. All of them seem quite familiar to me, so I repeated every single step my instructor took, even going so far as naming these files appropriately. "Don't choose these files"

After doing this, I then proceeded to take my cartridge of Paper Mario that contains all of the soft locks ready and returned them to the shop owner. He gladly accepts the returned game, not realizing that the files have been tampered with again. I walk out of the store, smiling at my attempts to soft lock every file.

Hopefully the next person who brought the cartridge is stupid and curious enough to investigate the files, or smart enough to wipe clean the cartridge of any preexisting files.

Probably...

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From the Author

The fool who brought the softlocked game apparently now wants to troll new owners of the cartridge with the same thing that happened to him. What a jerk. Why is he doing this? To share his experience when he first brought it? I have no clue.

Well, I hope that cartridge will get so old and used so much that the data inside becomes unreadable. And that guy was probably the last straw.

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Paper Mario was developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo


End file.
